WITCHFINDER GENERAL / Tigon British Film Productions, AIP - 1968

It's Friday and do you know what that means?.. Me neither, so, here another movie starring Dungeon god, Vincent Price. The story is written by Tom Baker and Michael Reeves goes like this... England is torn in civil strife as the Royalists battle the Parliamentary Party for control. The conflict distracts people from rational thought and allows unscrupulous men to gain local power by exploiting village superstitions. One of these men is Matthew Hopkins, played by Vinnie, who roams the land offering his services as a persecutor of witches and is aided by his sadistic accomplice, John Stearne. Hopkins travels from city to city and wrenches confessions from "witches" in order to line his pockets and gain sexual favors! When Hopkins persecutes a priest, he incurs the wrath of Richard Marshall, who is engaged to the priest's niece and risks treason by leaving his military duties. Marshall relentlessly pursues Hopkins til the bitter end.

This movie has a ton of alternative titles including THE CONQUEROR WORM.

I don't exactly know why, but, this movie bores the Hell out of me, I just lose interest quickly.

Ian (THE DAY THE FISH CAME OUT) Ogilvy plays good guy Richard Marshall. Here he is with his military pals, then, he visits his fiancee at her uncle's place.

Here are Matthew Hopkins and his sadistic helper, John Stearne, roaming the countryside, looking for more helpers to aid them in their witch finding efforts...

I threw this shot in because I love British country scenes. When I was a kid I spent time out at my uncle's house in the country. About a half mile away was a large area of trees that fascinated me and I would day dream about walking around there... Kids!!

Here's a nice shot of Vinnie as he contimplates his next devilish move... You dirty dog!

Here, Hopkins uses his power to satisfy his carnal needs!.. You dirty pig!

Hopkins goes too far and and hangs a priest, who happens to be the uncle of Richard's fiancee. This turns out to be a big mistake by Hopkins because Richard is now coming for him!

Richard is searching for Hopkins and comes across a fisherman with the White Cliffs of Dover in the background, nice!

Later, Hopkins takes Richard and his fiancee to a castle that has a special Torture Dungeon! But, Richard is able to kick his way out of his predicament.

In a wild scene, Richard uses his spur to take out Reeves, then, he turns his focus on Hopkins!

Well, good old Hopkins gets a number of ax whacks in the back and eventually goes down for the count... Vinnie will rise from the grave and return to star in his next production, SPIRITS OF THE DEAD!

Welp, it's a sad ending with lives torn apart... The good news is that we're back tomorrow with something special from Eegah!! - Here at The Dungeon!!

BUBBLES CASH - "Mars Needs Women" (1967)

Back in 2007, when we first started this blog and were pumping out 30 to 50 of these posts a month, one of the movies I did was "Mars Needs Women," a super cheapo Larry Buchanan TV movie made in T for Texas. Since I was focused mostly on the music back them, a strip club with some sleazy bump and grind music by Ron Stein was very appealing to me. The dancer in the club was a woman named Bubbles Cash (No relation to Johnny) who is quite a legend in Dallas. Bubbles' daughter Keiley Mink left a comment 10 years later, and told me I had the info on her Mom incorrect, and while I was in the process of correcting it, I found this piece of damn interesting information:

 According to the website Flocheer.com, Bubbles Cash was the reason we have the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders today, and here's how the story goes:

"Dallas Cowboys general manage Tex Schramm had a revolutionary inspiration in 1967.

During a Cowboys game against the Atlanta Falcons at the Cotton Bowl, a popular local stripper named Bubbles Cash caused a sensational buzz in the crowd when she walked down the stadium stairs, provocatively dressed, at the 50-yard line carrying cotton candy in each hand.

Schramm decided then and there that his Cowboys needed a cheerleading team dressed similarly to Cash. In 1969, the men were dropped from the "Cow Belles and Beaux," and the squad became known as the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, each year recruiting new members."

 

A newspaper ad featuring exotic dancer Bubbles Cash.

Courtesy of www.dallashistory.org

You can watch the whole enchilada that is "Mars Needs Women" for free on YouTube! It comes with French sub-titles at no extra cost! It's truly amazing how many of the classic old monster and Sci-Fi movies stream for free on YouTube these days like "Devil Girl From Mars," "The Phantom Planet," "Frankenstein Meets The Space Monster," "Journey To The Seventh Planet," "Day Of The Triffids," "Fiend Without A Face," "It Conquered The World," "The Space Children," "This Island Earth," "Teenagers From Outer Space," "The Giant Claw," "Them," "Invasion Of The Saucer Men etc. etc. etc....No wonder nobody wants to go to work any more!!

 The IMDB says that Bubbles was in two other movies besides"Mars Needs Women" in 1967 titled "Hit Hop And 21," and "Hot Thrills And Warm Chills, but Bubbles says she wasn't in those movies, but she was in a movie with her and a lot of water called "Swamp Lust," and a documentary called "Mondo Texas," that I also can't find out any information about, but we're talking about 1960's Texas indie film making, so anything is possible!

Bubbles ran for Governor of Texas as a write-in candidate in 1990 and came in fourth place with 3,275 votes!

 Since this was a made for TV movie, this is as far as the show goes!

Keiley also sent this along and it really shows what a tightwad Larry Buchanan was. It took the company seven years to issue a check for $29.00 for Bubbles' scene!

Keiley also said that Bubbles was interviewed in this impossible to find documentary about "The Sex Pistols" called "D.O.A.: A Rite Of Passage," and since it sells on Amazon for 100 bucks, we're just gonna have to take her word for it! 

There is also an interesting article from WFMU written by Josh Alan Friedman about Jack Ruby, the man who shot the man who shot Kennedy, that has some quotes from Bubbles, because she worked in the same area where Jack Ruby's club was!

Bubbles gives out a trophy at a Karate tournament!

Bubbles Cash! A National Treasure!

Mars doesn't need women like her, Earth needs more women like her!  

DR. PHIBES RISES AGAIN / American International Pictures - 1972

Here we go into the unknown and possible the end of the stinking world here in 2017, so, we'll let good old Dr. Phibes handle the crazies... Our story goes like this... The Moon rises at a predestined angle and awakens the sleeping Dr. Phibes three years after his last series of clever but insane murders. To his complete dismay, he finds that his house has been demolished and his precious papyrus scrolls stolen, the scrolls he needs to find the Pharoah's Tomb in Egypt, where the River of Life is located! After identifying the source of the papyrus theft, he packs up and leaves for Egypt with his assistant, Vulnavia, and, is still intent upon awakening his beloved dead wife, Victoria.

The many stars in this movie include Vincent (MADHOUSE) Price, Robert (COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE) Quarry, Peter (THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN) Cushing, Peter (COUNTESS DRACULA) Jeffrey, Hugh (CRY OF THE BANSHEE) Griffith, Terry- (IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD)Thomas, and more.

Here's Milton (DR. NO) Reid as Cheng. He's the first of Phibes' victims, he discovers that the snakes invading his room are nothing more than wind up toys, well, until a real viper bites him on the arm! When he goes to the phone to call a doctor, Vulnavia pushes a button and Cheng gets a metal rod through his head! And, he's dead!!

Peter plays The Captain, he's checking in to see how his investigators are doing on the case... They tell him they have nothing!

Terry-Thomas plays Lombardo, a real busy-body of a character. Love the gap in Terry's front teeth (although, not seen in this shot).

This is the most hair raising scene! This poor guy gets the works, he's clamped down in the chair and a ton of black scorpions attack him!.. Check out the one going down his pants! Like, freakin' OOUUUCCCHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

While the dude says goodbye to this world, Vulnavia plays the violin as Phibes enjoys some fruit. Now, that's what I call... Satisfaction!

For the Hell of it, here's a nice shot of Dr. Phibes' very cool band, The Alexandrian Quartet.

And, for the halibut, I had to show a pic of this old out of control pick up driving through the Egyptian desert... Hey! Watch Out!!

Phibes' insidious death traps just keep coming until all his enemies are dead!

But, there's a wild twist at the end, watch the movie to see what happens! I ain't sayin'.

And, Victoria finally joins Phibes, here, she goes into their special love palace! Join us again while we just keep rolling along as we start our eleventh year, here for you, at, The Dungeon!

NEW YEAR'S ROCKIN' EVE '79

 We're finishing off this year with a Dick Clark New Year's celebration for the year 1979. In 1978 the health of popular rock music was on a downward spiral. There were still good bands and musicians, but you had to search them out because for the most part they weren't getting played on the radio much, and I'm talking about musicians like Little Feat, XTC, Squeeze, Elvis Costello, Television, The Cars, Magazine, Talking Heads, and The Tubes, to name just a few, but when it came down to the final New Year's Eve show on ABC, we were subjected to some of the worst music ever. Disco had taken over big time, and it was enough to make you gag! This is the kind of music that made me start listening to jazz on a full-time basis!

Dick Clark was the grandmaster of the show, as he had done before, and would continue to do for many years!

Here is the rockin' lineup for this show:

 The Village People!

 Tanya Tucker!!

Barry Manilow!!!

Rick James!!!! 

and Chuck Mangione!!!!!

And Dick had the nerve to call it a "New Year's Rockin' Eve!" Besides Rick James, nothing in that group of names even suggests something "Rockin!"

 The hosts weren't too rockin' either! Lauren Tewes of 199 episodes of "Love Boat" fame, and "CHiPs" star in 138 episodes, Erik Estrada!!

  And the whole thing was boldly sponsored by Dr. Pepper!! 

 The guy in the striped shirt and short shorts is too much!

 Dr. Pepper shelled out the big bucks for big names like Jimmy Walker..........

 .............And Fred Flinstone!!

 Well, this has sure been a big year in the death of celebrities department, but if you think about it, it really makes sense considering how we have become a society bombarded with entertainment  not just in the movies or on TV, but in music and sports too!

Here's a quick comparison of just a few of the biggest celebrities who passed away in 1978 and 2016. I think you'll get my point!

in 1978 we lost: 

Bob Crane (Hogan's Heroes) age 49

Keith Moon (The Who) age 32

Bandleader Louis Prima age 67

Ventriloquist Edgar Bergen age 75

Western character actor Chill Wills age 75

André Morell (Quatermass) age 69

Leo Genn (Psycho-Circus, Die Screaming Marianne) age 72

Singer Bob Luman age 41

Edward D. Wood Jr, (Plan 9 From Outer Space) age 54

Robert Coogan (Sooky) age 53

Western actor Tim McCoy age 86

Painter Norman Rockwell age 84
One of the greatest comic artists of all time Basil Wolverton age 69

 The countdown to Midnight, but it wasn't even live, what's up with that?

Now while that was quite a substantial list of talent, there's just no comparison to some of the names we lost in 2016! In 2016, we lost people who were at one time or another in their life # 01 at what they did! (Because of the rise in the popularity of music over the years, there are a lot more musicians on this list!

Musicians David Bowie age 69

Merle Haggard age 79

Glen Frey (The Eagles) age 67

Paul Kantner (Jefferson Airplane) age 74

Maurice White (Earth, Wind and Fire) age 74

Prince age 57

Vanity age 57

Bernie Worell (Funkadelic) age72

Leon Russell age 74

Beatles record producer George Martin age 90

The Greatest Muhammad Ali age 74

All time great golfer Arnold Palmer age 87

Astronaut John Glenn age 95

and from movies and TV:

Patty Duke age 69

Gary Shandling age 66 

Gene Wilder age 83

 The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Robert Vaughn age 83

The Queen Of Outer Space Zsa Zsa Gabor age 99

Noel Neill (Lois Lane) age 95

and last but not least, 

Carrie Fisher age 60

 and her Mom

Debbie Reynolds age 84!

Out of all the 80 gazillion people in the world, there are names on that list whose talents will NEVER be duplicated, and we lost them all in one year, but don't worry, next year will probably be even worse because we all gotta go sometime!

Happy 2017!!!!